How many bus lane Penalty Charge Notices Lambeth Council issues, how much it raises, and how often challenges succeed — from data released under Freedom of Information (ref IRN48074457).
184,789
PCNs issued in 5 years2021/22–2025/26
£8.99m
gross income, 5 yearsnet of costs not held
31,317
PCNs in 2025/26
47%
paid at the £80 discount2025/26
11%
of challenges upheld2025/26
This page reports data released by Lambeth Council under the Freedom of Information Act (IRN48074457, responded 2026-08-07). Figures are the council's own. BusLaneCheck is independent and not affiliated with the council. Compare every UK authority →
Bus lane PCNs issued per yearGross PCN income per year
Penalties fell by 29% over the five years, from 44,107 in 2021/22 to 31,317 in 2025/26, and the fall was steepest between 2022/23 and 2023/24. Income tells a different story because the London penalty rose from £130 to £160 on 7 April 2025: revenue had dropped to £1,336,893 by 2024/25, then jumped back to £1,692,892 in 2025/26 on slightly fewer penalties than the year before. Challenging is worth understanding here. Lambeth received between 5,927 and 8,705 formal representations a year — roughly one for every five penalties, a far higher rate than most authorities — but the share allowed has fallen from 15% to 11%. Appeals to an independent adjudicator are rarer and have got much harder: 52 of 150 were allowed in 2021/22, against 5 of 113 in 2025/26.
Where the cameras are
Lambeth did not break its penalty figures down by camera, but it did release the camera list, so it is possible to say exactly where enforcement happens even though it is not possible to rank the sites. There are 21 cameras on 12 roads: 15 ANPR cameras, all switched on together on 27 March 2020, at Kennington Road (north and south), Clapham Park Road, Lambeth Road and the Lambeth Road Pratt Street roundabout, Westminster Bridge Road (north and south), Wandsworth Road, Kings Avenue, Acre Lane in three places including the Town Hall junction with Brixton Road and the junction with Bucknell Close, Norwood Road, Mitcham Lane opposite Campbell Close, and Tulse Hill at Hardel Walk; plus 6 older static cameras, with no start date given, on Wandsworth Road, Acre Lane, Effra Road and Cedars Road. Hours vary by site rather than borough-wide: Kennington Road, Clapham Park Road, Westminster Bridge Road, Norwood Road and the Pratt Street roundabout run 24 hours a day every day, while most of the rest run 7am to 7pm Monday to Saturday, and Wandsworth Road is enforced only from 4pm to 7pm on weekdays. This list also settles something about the wider Lambeth data on this site: 20 of the 36 Lambeth bus lanes listed on BusLaneCheck are on roads with no council camera at all, and they are now marked as not camera-enforced.
Challenges & appeals — do they work?
Formal representations to the council, and appeals to the independent London Tribunals (the Environment and Traffic Adjudicators). Drivers made 36,571 formal challenges over 5 years.
Year
Challenges
Upheld
Rejected
Success rate
To tribunal
2021/22
8,089
1,183
6,906
15%
150 (52 allowed / 98 dismissed)
2022/23
8,705
1,258
7,447
14%
190 (57 allowed / 133 dismissed)
2023/24
6,774
837
5,937
12%
137 (20 allowed / 117 dismissed)
2024/25
7,076
1,204
5,872
17%
194 (32 allowed / 162 dismissed)
2025/26
5,927
672
5,255
11%
113 (5 allowed / 108 dismissed)
The council's own figures show the share of challenges upheld went from 15% in 2021/22 to 11% in 2025/26 — so a well-grounded challenge is worth making. See our guide to appealing a bus lane PCN for the grounds that win.
The fine itself
A bus lane PCN from Lambeth Council is £160, reduced to £80 if paid within 14 days. It is a civil penalty — there are no licence points. £160, halved to £80 within 14 days, is the current London bus lane penalty, in force since 7 April 2025. For the first four years shown here the London penalty was £130, halved to £65, so do not divide the older income figures by today's rate. The money reconciles against the rate that applied at the time: in 2025/26, 14,633 penalties paid at the £80 discount account for £1,170,640 of the £1,692,892 collected, the balance being roughly 3,264 paid at the full £160.
What the council does not hold or publish
Which camera issued which penalty. Lambeth supplied its penalty figures for the borough as a whole, month by month, but not broken down by camera or road, so there is no league table on this page. The camera locations themselves were released and are listed below.
Challenges rejected, and appeals dismissed. The council gave the number of representations received and the number allowed, but not the number rejected; the rejected figures shown are the difference between the two, and will include any still open at the year end. The same applies to appeals dismissed.
Cost of running the cameras. No operating-cost figure was given, so the income here is gross. It is not what the council keeps.